Tapping Fingers
by Chris Kenworthy
Summary: Liz saves Alex's life, but can she keep him alive and keep Max out of Tess' clutches?
1. Part 1

Title: Tapping Fingers  
  
Part: 1  
  
Author: Chris Kenworthy  
  
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net  
  
Homepage: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.  
  
Category: Sci-fi drama. CC, alt timeline  
  
Spoilers: Up to 'ask not'  
  
Author's note: If you ever got frustrated with my UC fics... try this on for size. I think you'll see what I mean very soon. ;-)  
  
"Why does life have to be so wrong? Why does *EVERYTHING* have to be a lie??"  
  
"Umm... I don't know dude."  
  
Alex looked at the Thai food delivery guy and handed back the receipt he had just signed. The poor guy beat a hasty retreat, and Alex couldn't blame him. What was with him lately?? He'd been feeling so strange... but he couldn't but his finger on how and why. He picked up the picture of Leanna from Sweden and gave it a long hard look.  
  
"Leanna is not Leanna." Where had that come from? It had popped into his head before - he'd even made it into a little loop program on his laptop. But why? Was it lingering guilt over taking Isabel to the prom?  
  
"No!" The exclamation surprised Alex himself, but he was riding out the moment, not judging it. "Sweden is not Sweden!! Sweden is... where?" Alex noticed distantly that his fingers were tapping rapidly on the arm of the chair. "Sweden is... Las Crucis?!"  
  
What the heck? "Las Crucis? What the hell does Sweden have to do with Las Crucis??"  
  
Alex stepped up, his fingers tapping a mile a minute on his thigh. "You are the royal four. You are created from the genetic materials of your alien predecessors... What the hell is going on?" And a memory flashed into his mind - him snarling at Tess and pushing her against a drab orange wall, asking that same question of her.  
  
Tess hadn't answered. She had just closed her eyes and concentrated hard, and Alex... Alex had forgotten. He'd forgotten so much...  
  
Tess. She was the key to all of this. He had to talk to Tess... he wasn't quite sure why, but he knew he had to go to Tess.  
  
Alex grabbed up his keys and headed for the door. It wouldn't open. Sighing, Alex fumbled with the key ring and brought out the house key. He hadn't locked the door after the Thai guy left, had he?? (He HATED Thai food - hated it with a passion. Why had he ordered it?) The key wouldn't go in the lock at first - he tried it this way, and that, and finally the sleek metal slid home into its slot. Tapping his spare fingers, he turned it open - there was no resistance, and the door still wouldn't open.  
  
He tried it the other way - there was pressure this time, as the deadbolt slid across, and Alex lost his grip on the key for a second. The door still wouldn't open - of course. He unlocked the lock again.  
  
It took Alex five tried to realize he hadn't been turning the doorknob.  
  
Once the door finally swung open, Alex burst through it at a breakneck velocity, only to almost crash into someone else who had just been about to ring the doorbell.  
  
Liz Parker. "What... what are you doing here?" he gasped in surprise. Liz and Maria had left to head to their job at the Crashdown Cafe.  
  
"I, um..." Liz blushed prettily. I forgot my..." She made gestures drawing lines out of the top of her head, and finished somewhat uncertainly with, "uh, alien, ant-- enna. --- Alex, are you okay?"  
  
"Liz, you have to help me," Alex heard himself say. "She's taken my brain!"  
  
"Uh... huh??" were the first two sounds out of Liz's mouth as she looked at Alex with surprise. "What are you talking ab-- *who's* taken your brain?"  
  
"She, she..." Alex shook his head furiously, but that didn't seem to help him regain any of his composure. "She set the whole thing up. There never *was* any Sweden exchange program. It was all just an excuse to... GOD, she *made* me do it, Liz. To feel her 'pushing' me towards the answer, day in and day out for weeks... makes AP english feel like a walk in the park, ohhh..." Alex looked up towards Liz and seemed to finally clue in that he hadn't answered her question. "Tess! That little monster... it was Tess!!"  
  
Liz felt a huge flood of conflicting emotions in her when she heard the name, but shoved them down. "So it's *Tess* who stole your brain? C'mon Alex... it's a nice show you're putting on, but this really isn't the way to cheer me up..."  
  
"Do you think I'm JOKING, Parker!!" Alex yelled, grabbing Liz's hand and glaring directly into her eyes. Then he caught himself again. "I... Liz! I'm sorry, I..." he turned away from her. "Never mind. I have to go to her. To Tess. She'll fix me again. I just have to get to Tess before..."  
  
"No, wait a second!!" Liz said. "Something really *is* wrong, isn't it?" Alex turned away from her, heading back down the walk towards his dad's car. "Alex!!" Liz raced after him, (not hard since Alex didn't seem to be too steady on his feet,) and this time she was the one to catch him by the wrist. "Don't go to Tess, Alex. Not until we've figured out what's going on. Just come..." she started to gently lead him towards the door. "Come inside with me. What are you saying that Tess did to you?"  
  
"Quantum... quantum computer," Alex babbled again. "Designed to analyze the logical structure underlying communication patterns - develop a touchstone pattern for it. Understand any language... even break codes. But no-one ever tried it on something as difficult as this..."  
  
"Okay..." Liz agreed, closing the front door and taking Alex into the living room. Good thing his parents were away on a lecture tour - this could be *very* difficult to explain to the Whitmans. She didn't understand what Alex had just said or how it related, but it didn't seem worth it to pester him with more questions. Let him ramble on a bit more and see if she could get the gist of things.  
  
"For days and nights I worked on it. Nothing to give me a break except a cot in that cramped little visitor's room, thai food and going out to let Tess take pictures. God, I *hate* thai food!!"  
  
"Pictures?" Liz repeated softly. Supportively, she hoped. "Why was Tess taking pictures??"  
  
"She could fake anything she wanted, but I guess it was easier with background material. God, the bitch is so thorough!! I didn't understand until she sent me home with all those slide carousels -- and then, of course, a few hours later I didn't understand anything, didn't remember anything but Sweden..."  
  
"Sweden!!" Liz exclaimed, finally seeing the connection. "Are you saying that... while we all thought you were in Sweden, Tess had you using a computer to translate some..." The completion finally hit her. "To translate the destiny book!! And then she used her powers, somehow, to cover it up. But why? Why couldn't she have just proposed her plan straight out??"  
  
Now that Liz had said it out loud, she could think of some reasons, none of which made her happy. But there were other things to worry about now. "Alex, Alex!!" She waited until Alex was looking at her, seeming reasonably coherent. "You said she'd stolen your brain, and you don't seem to be up to your usual charming self. Do you know what's happening to you??"  
  
"The mindwarp..." Alex gasped out. "Occasional exposure is harmless, but on a prolonged or repetitive basis... I don't remember the rest. It hurts. Can you help me, Liz??"  
  
Liz's face froze in panic. "I'll let you know in a second, bud." Quickly she ran over to the lving room phone and tapped off a number commited to heart many months ago.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Max? It's Liz. You've gotta come over here, I'm at Alex's house."  
  
"What?! -- Sure, what is it??"  
  
"Tess... she did something to Alex. Mindwarped him, kind of, though it sounds more complete than what we're used to. She had him under control the whole time we thought he was in Sweden, and it's killing him. Please, Max, you've got to hurr..."  
  
"Liz?" Liz could hear Max sigh over the line. "C'mon, don't do this, okay?? I understand that you're upset..."  
  
"WHAT!?" Liz shrieked into the receiver. "Maxwell Robinson Evans, this has NOTHING to do with you and me, or my feelings about that little blonde hussy. This is *real*, this is ALEX, and I'm telling you the truth, she *DID* something to him! Now, are you going to come and help out, or do you actually believe that I'd joke about something so serious just to spite Miz Harding??"  
  
"...don't know -- huh??" Max muttered over the other end of the line. "Umm... okay, uh... you said Alex's house, right??"  
  
"Yeah, Max," Liz whispered to him softly.  
  
"I'll be over there as soon as I can."  
  
"Thank you, Max," Liz said, but the connection had already cut off. Liz sighed, hung up, and turned straight into the angry glare that Maria was shooting at her from the Whitman's front hall.  
  
"What's the holdup? If you wanted to call Maxxie-pooh, you coulda borrowed my cell," Maria reminded her. "You said you just had to get your antenn--"  
  
"It's Alex," Liz explained, gesturing at Alex - and realizing at that second that her friend was lying face-down on the couch. As Maria watched, still a little confused, Liz hurried over to Alex. "Alex, Alex, are you okay? Don't slip away from us yet, buddy..."  
  
Alex's eyes had been closed, but they opened as Liz carefully turned his face up towards hers. "I... you won't be rid of me *this* easily, Parker," he teased her. "Iz... Isabel..."  
  
"Do you want to talk to Isabel??" Liz guessed. She thought Alex nodded, but she couldn't be sure. "I'll call her over here. Don't worry, just get some rest." She went back to the phone.  
  
"What the hell happened?" Maria whispered, stepping close to her oldest friend.  
  
"It's a long story," Liz stalled. "I'll... I'll try to tell you, once I've called Isabel, okay??"  
  
* * * * *  
  
Max sighed as he hurried down his front walk and towards the Jeep. Liz had sounded really upset with him on the phone. He wondered if she had found out about Tess kissing him at the dance. And what was all this about Alex being sick? Why did *he* need to go over to Alex's house??  
  
As Max put his keys in the jeep door, he looked around - and his breath caught. There was Tess, walking down thesidewalk towards him, perky as ever. "Hey, you trying to run away from me, Max?" she called out in a teasing voice. "I just came over to hang out."  
  
"Um, no, no..." Max stuttered, smiling back weakly. "I, uh, just remembered that, er, I mean, Brody just called me. There's something he needs me to do at the UFO center."  
  
"Oh," Tess said after a second, the disappointment showing in her face. "Can I tag along??"  
  
"I, uh, don't think so," Max mumbled in reply. "Um, Brody's off on one of his secrecy kicks again."  
  
"C'mon, Max, Brody loves me," Tess reminded him, and caught Max's flinch. "Max, what's going on??"  
  
Max didn't answer her this time - every exchange seemed to be making the little blonde alien more suspicious, so there didn't seem to be much point. He turned back to the car door, but the keys weren't in it anymore. He caught a glint of something shiny just under the car and bent down after it - but the keys weren't there. When he straightened up, they were in the car door after all, and the door was already unlocked. He opened it...  
  
And noticed Tess standing on the other side of the car, holding the shotgun door ajar. "Coming baby?" she asked. The memory of the passionate kiss they had shared ran through Max's mind, and he almost got in the car.  
  
**No!!** something inside Max screamed. **She's doing this - she's trying to manipulate you. And it's working!!**  
  
Max rushed away from the car, dashing down Murray lane in the opposite direction from which Tess had come. He heard Tess trying to chase him, but she couldn't match his speed. He noticed the alleyway leading to Culvers avenue up ahead and cut across the street to get to it - it was a shortcut to Alex's neighborhood.  
  
Just as he was getting to the sidewalk on the other side of the street, though, Max felt an invisible tug yanking his legs out from under him, making him lose his balance, and he stumbled against the concrete. Determinedly, he pulled himself back up, but Tess' fingers were touching the back of his neck and Max gasped in shock.  
  
She was using some power that he'd never even dreamed of - no, it was a variation on his own healing ability, except instead of connecting to repair the normal processes of the body, Tess was interfering. She was constricting the blood flow as it left his heart, and already the feeling of weakness was starting to get to him.  
  
Well, two could play this game. While Tess was connecting to Max, he was connected to her. Max didn't bother with her heart - he slowed the arteries flowing into Tess' brain. The reaction was gratifyingly quick. Even though Tess was still standing behind him, Max could feel her eyelids flutter closed, and the grip on his heart eased. Max forced his muscles to move away from Tess, and as soon as contact between their skin was broken, he was off and running again, charging down the alleyway like the armies of hell were behind him.  
  
As Max reached Culvers avenue, a familiar desert-red Sunfire pulled up, and for once he was glad to see the guy getting out of the driver's seat. "Kyle, thank god you're here. Tess has gone psycho or something - we've gotta get up to Alex's place before..."  
  
Max didn't notice the baseball bat that Kyle was holding at his side until much too late. WHOMPP!! As the pain blossomed in his left temple and he dropped to his knees, the words 'there are some slings and arrows that all human DNA is heir to,' ran unhelpfully through his mind.  
  
"God, Kyle," Tess panted as she jogged up to the scene. "What kinda lazy knight in shining armor are you trying to be? I almost had to take him down myself."  
  
Relatively mercifully, consciousness left Max at that point.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	2. Part 2

Title: Tapping Fingers  
  
Part: 2  
  
Author: Chris Kenworthy  
  
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net  
  
Homepage: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.  
  
Category: Sci-fi drama. CC, alt timeline  
  
Spoilers: Up to 'cry your name'  
  
"Ahhh!!" With a half-strangled gasp, Isabel Evans' eyes flew open and she shot up straight on the couch. Liz and Maria's eyes were centered on her in an instant.  
  
"What is it??" Maria asked, the worry evident in her voice. "Did you get in?"  
  
Isabel looked reluctant to answer, but she evidently couldn't keep one of Alex's oldest friends in the dark. "Yeah, and I *really* wish I hadn't. I mean, I've seen some weird stuff walking around peoples' subconsciousses, obviously. But Alex's dream..." Isabel had to nerve herself, and when she did, it was in a very quiet, very frightened whisper. "I think he's going insane." Tears were falling down her usually flawless cheeks.  
  
Seeing Isabel look so broken up about this chilled Liz to the very depths of her soul, but she had never been one to give in to panic reactions and *DAMN* if she was gonna start now. "Come on, Iz," she said supportively, grabbing the taller girl's hand in her own. "Alex is gonna be fine. There is a way to help him and we are *going* to find it. What about you, your powers? You can contact minds, can you affect them? Help him somehow, that way?"  
  
"I've never been able to, yet," Isabel said softly. "I wouldn't know how to start. I can communicate, yes, but we're past that - I was staring Alex right in the face, in that last dream, and I don't think he recognized me. What we need..."  
  
"...Is the healer," Maria finished for her. "Where the heck IS Max, anyways?"  
  
"Only one way to find out, I guess," Liz said, picking up the telephone handset again. She called the Evans house for a second time, only to reach Isabel and Max's adoptive mother, who said that Max had left twenty minutes ago, and that he had indeed said he was going over to Alex's place. His jeep was gone from the driveway.  
  
Next Liz called Max's cell phone, and it picked up on the second ring. A familiar voice. "Hello, Max Evans' pants."  
  
*It was Tess.* Panicking, Liz hung the phone back up.  
  
"What the heck?" Isabel asked her, staring in confusion.  
  
"It... it was Tess," Liz managed to choke out. "SHE's got to him."  
  
"We don't know that," Maria mumbled. "Far be it from me to defend the hussy, but they *were* pretty tight at the prom, by all accounts. We don't know..."  
  
"We don't know - but we can't take any chances with Alex's safety either," Isabel decided suddenly. "Max is out, at least for now. What's our plan B??"  
  
There was a dead silence as the three girls each looked at the others and at Alex's sleeping body. "Umm... was I supposed to bring one?" Maria deadpanned. Liz and Isabel each glared unappreciatively at her. "Sorry... trying to break some of the tension around here."  
  
"The healing stones," Liz suggested tentatively, as if Maria hasn't spoken. "It's a bit of a long shot, I know, But what other choice do we have??"  
  
Maria and Isabel considered that doubtfully, but didn't answer, which was answer enough. "I'll drive," Isabel announced at last, pulling out a key ring. She had been running errands in her mother's car when Liz had reached her on the cell phone, and apparently thought that meant the car was at her disposal for the duration of the emergency.  
  
Liz nodded grimly. "Let's do this. Maria - can you help me get Alex out to the c..." Liz broke off because Isabel had gone over to Alex's sleeping body herself and gathered him up into her arms as easily and carefully as if the young man had been a delicate lace blanket.  
  
"Uhh... okay, that works," Maria muttered as they followed the teen alien girl outside.  
  
* * * * *  
  
"C'mon, Max, wake up, everything's okay," The reassuring voice broke Max out of complete and total oblivion. "Don't worry, it was just a nightmare."  
  
*WHAT* was a nightmare? And then it started to come back to him - Liz calling him, in trouble. No... it had been *Alex* that was in trouble, right? And Tess had tried to stop him and Kyle had bopped him in the head with a baseball bat...  
  
"Don't worry about it," Tess reassured him. "Have something to drink - you're thirsty, aren't you??"  
  
Max *was* thirsty - he just suddenly realized it. He could picture a tall, refreshing glass of the frosty pink lemonade his mom used to mix for himself and Isabel when they were younger. His mouth started to water. Someone placed a glass in his hands. beads of moisture lacing the smooth surface, and without any further urging Max brought it to his lips and drank.  
  
It was nice - but also slightly strange. Sweet and fruity - but there was a faint and bitter aftertaste that was not exactly like anything Max had ever tasted before. "What is this?" he asked croakily - it was the first thing he had actually said aloud since waking up.  
  
"Just drink it down." Max took another sip, and then a vague sense that something was wrong started to solidify. For one thing what he remembered WASN'T a nightmare, he was sure of that. And that meant...  
  
All of a sudden another pair of hands had grabbed the glass and was trying to bring it to his mouth themselves. Max resisted, flailint out violently with enough force that he should have spilled the glass, but the other person carefully protected it and took it away. "What's going on here??"  
  
His vision chose this moment to clear away its sleep-fogginess. He was in Tess' bedroom in the Valenti house - (the one that had used to be Kyle's bedroom.) And yes, Tess was the one who was putting the red glass, still nine-tenths full of a brilliantly red liquid down on the dresser.  
  
Max stood up from the bed. He suddenly noticed that he wasn't wearing anything more than his boxers and undershirt, but he refused to feel and embarassment over that. "You won't get away with this, Tess."  
  
"Maybe I will, Max," There was a peculiar quality to her voice. "Sit down again." And before Max could realize what was happening, he was sitting down on the bed again.  
  
"Gooseberry juice," Tess commented aloud, indicating the glass, as Max sat there in confusion. "It has a chemical component that acts as a mind-affecting drug on individuals of our persuasion. Just one of the little tidbits that our protector let me in on during all those years that we were together. You might have been the king, Max, but his ultimate loyalties were to me. And mine to him, for that matter -- if only I'd been able to forsee that attack on him ahead of time."  
  
Kyle appeared at the bedroom door. "The Jeep's in the garage and the door's down," he announced. "No-one noticed anything unusual."  
  
Max didn't understand the significance of Kyle's words -- he was still mostly too frightened and confused to think straight. "Kyle! Kyle, man, it's me, Max. You've gotta help me out."  
  
"You're wasting your time, Max," Tess told him coldly. "You may have saved his life, but Kyle will never work against me. You have Lonnie to thank for that - she knew an awful lot about how to control human minds. But she never expected me to be able to reverse her mind-warp, there in that cold New York sewer. I took everything of value out of her mind, and then I killed her and her little Rath too. You walked through the piles of dust that were left of their corpses and never even knew it."  
  
"But to control one of *our* kind - well, that's a considerably tougher proposition, Max. I was making headway on conditioning you the subtle way, over the past few weeks, until whatever your little ex-girlfriend did to snap you out of it. Now it's gonna have to be the hard way."  
  
Why is she telling me all this, Max thought. Why would Tess lay all of her cards out on the table like this? The question brought the answer. She was trying to psych him out - she believed that convincing him of how remarkable her powers were would make the next step easier.  
  
"Look into my eyes, Max." He jerked his face away, closing his eyes. Suddenly there was a bright flash - as if a bolt of lightning had come down right in front of him, and as if his eyes weren't closed. Dazed, he instinctively waited a second, and then cracked his eyes back open.  
  
Tess had his face in her hands and was lifting it up to meet her gaze. Max couldn't resist, didn't even think of resisting until he was staring into those eyes, as blue as the sky on a perfect summer day. And then he froze.  
  
"You see me, you can only see me," Tess whispered to him softly. "You can hear my voice, you only hear me. My words are a whisper into your soul." She continued to gaze into his eyes.  
  
After a few seconds of inactivity, Max roared into action. Powers forgotten, he struck Tess' arms away and shoved her down to the floor. Fear and concern for Liz and Alex upmost in his mind, he swung back a leg to deliver a punishing kick into the side of the girls' head... which should buy him enough time to get his Jeep out of the garage and take off.  
  
"Stop that." Tess' voice was mildly scolding, and Max obediently dropped his foot back onto the ground, surprised with himself. "Good." Tess straightened herself out and stood up. "Now... take another drink of this." She picked up the glass of gooseberry juice again and offered it to Max. "Finish the glass."  
  
Max's mind was consumed with the hatred he felt for Tess, but he couldn't think of disobeying her order. In his mind, the to do list was modified instantly - drink gooseberry juice, beat the crap out of Tess, go to help Liz and Alex. It had to be some kind of hypnotism thing, but he was helpless against it.  
  
And it didn't consciously occur to Max that once he had drunk the juice, it would only give Tess more power to rearrange his agenda.  
  
"You don't want to hurt me, Max," she said, as he was chugging down the last of the tangy beverage. "You trust me, don't you?"  
  
Max wiped his mouth and looked at her. "Yes... I trust you." Something seemed so horribly wrong about that, but he couldn't remember it now.  
  
"You have to let me in, Max," she said, drawing him over to the bed. Soon they were sitting down next to each other - thighs pressing against each other through two pairs of jeans. "Your mental shields. You need to let them down for me."  
  
"I..." Max shook his head and looked up at her. "I don't know how."  
  
"You do, Max," she assured him. "You just don't know that you know. Think of the force field that you've learned you can create."  
  
"Okay," Max agreed. That was easy... to think of waving a hand and that green wall of wavy energy materializing. He'd had to use it so often to defend himself and his friends in the past year that it had almost become second nature... a reflex that had gotten him in trouble when Brody had gotten back Larek's memories and held them captive in the UFO center - because the shield had confirmed Brody's suspicions that Max was an alien.  
  
Wait a second... the UFO center. Tess had... she'd done something at the end of that ordeal, hadn't she? Max had to remember... it was so important...  
  
"There's another shield like that, around your mind," Tess said, driving whatever he had been thinking out of his head. "We all have it - it's part of our Antarian heritage. You already know how to raise and drop that shield instinctively, because otherwise Isabel would never have been able to dreamwalk you. You realize that it's her, that she's your sister and you trust her, and you let her in." Tess smiled over at Max, faint tears shining in her eyes. "I'm the one you love, your wife really. I'm closer to you than even a sister. Therefore..."  
  
"Therefore... I trust you to," Max whispered. The logic seemed inescapable. And then he felt it - he felt Tess's touch on his mind, and he let her in.  
  
And the cosmos changed in a subtle... horrifying... perfect way.  
  
He *did* love Tess. The words that had before only gotten in because of the mind-dulling juice and Tess' mesmeric tricks now resonated throughout his being. She was his destiny, she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She had saved him from... from... from *some* fate worse than death, and he was DEFINITELY grateful to her...  
  
"Max??" Tess whispered, shuddering slightly with the mental effort she had made. Uncertainly.  
  
"Yes, my darling?" Max replied. Tess looked up at him in relief and joy.  
  
"My love." She leaned over and kissed him sweetly on the lips, once, a piece of perfect heaven, and then broke off. "Okay... you'd better call and tell Michael something to get him here. Tell him... tell him you were attacked by a shapeshifter who was impersonating Liz."  
  
Max smiled. "Because we need him, but we can't afford to tell him yet how you liberated me."  
  
Tess jumped in surprise. How much did he remember? "No, we can't," she agreed. "Not yet. Once we have time to convince him to let me in, I can help him forget that little shrew Maria and make him realize that he belongs with Isabel. But first things first."  
  
"What about Isabel??" Max asked.  
  
Tess thought. "Call Michael first. And then you're going to have to tell me what Liz told you." All of her strategy could depend on that information.  
  
* * * * *  
  
"Okay..." Maria rushed ahead of Isabel once the Pod Chamber door was open, and went straight to the 'UFO box' of alien-related odds and ends that Max and Michael had gathered up here. Liz followed her inside, and Isabel brought up the rear with Alex, closing the door mechanism so that the chamber would be once again undetectable and impregnable amongst the mountain rocks.  
  
Impregnable - except with the touch of another of the Royal Four. Max, Michael, or Tess - any one of them could get in here too.  
  
Isabel laid Alex down carefully on the smooth floor and helped Maria sort through the contents. "Healing stones... we only need three... River dog's wooden bowl... Water! Anybody got water??" Isabel looked around the pod chamber, peering through the secret passageway toward the Granolith, as if expecting to see a faucet tap sticking out of the wall somewhere.  
  
Liz smiled faintly and swung her backpack around in front of her. It only took a few seconds to withdraw the large liter-and-a-half water bottle, three quarters full, and toss it over to Isabel.  
  
"Okay..." Isabel hurried them along, passing out healing stones and looking at Alex for a second. "I'll sit over here," she said, positioning herself to Alex's right, "and the two of you can be on his other side." She filled the water bowl from Liz's bottle, and looked at the stone in her hands with frustration. "How did River Dog have us do this again??"  
  
"Um... we drank from the bowl..." Maria said, closing her eyes really hard the way she did when she was trying to concentrate on a memory. "And focused on how we felt for Michael. Then we held the stones and chanted... and it happened."  
  
"Hmm..." Isabel looked at Alex's unconscious face as she drank from the bowl, and passed it over. Maria took it. "Any idea what the chant was?"  
  
"I don't think it matters," Liz said, then took the bowl when Maria was done, and drank from it. "It was just like a mantra, right? Something to focus our minds. So long as we pick something and say it together, I think the sounds themselves aren't important."  
  
"Okay, how about..." Maria paused. "Ah-mah-nah-tah-lee?"  
  
"Works for me," Liz agreed, focusing on her healing stone and Alex. Isabel nodded. "Ah-mah-nah-tah-lee... Ah-mah-nah-tah-lee..."  
  
The others joined in the chant, and Liz noticed her healing stone start to glow faintly. It seemed to be taking much longer getting started than when the others were healing Michael -- did that mean that this wasn't going to work??  
  
Suddenly Liz saw a sandy, desolate plain. Maria and Isabel were standing nearby. **This must be a healing vision, like the one Michael described. But the ones doing the healing that time didn't see anything, only Michael, who was the heal-ee.**  
  
As Liz was thinking to herself, suddenly a huge storm arrived on the plain - torrents of rain, winds strong enough to blow down the dead trees and knock Liz off her feet. Lightning struck here and there and as Liz struggled to get up, she noticed a tornado funnel moving towards them!!  
  
But it didn't move all the way to them. About twenty terrifying feet away the funnel paused -- and a huge monster stepped out of it!! Nine feet tall and almost that big across... with fists and claws and talons and tentacles, and a horribly ugly face right in the middle of what Liz had to assume was its chest. "Lunch delivery!!" the thing roared.  
  
"Isabel?" Maria called out with fear in her voice.  
  
Iz streched out her hand and delivered a blinding joly of energy to the beast, but that didn't seem to phaze it at all. It reached out and snatched Liz up into a claw. "Appetizer!"  
  
Suddenly something *did* phaze the monster, and Liz looked around to see what it was. The sun was starting to shine weakly through the clouds, and the tornado funnel was wobbling precariously.  
  
"Be back later!!" The monster dropped Liz back down onto the sandy ground. She picked herself up and tried to find the amber sun again. There was something familiar about... oh, of course. The 'sun' in this vision was a healing stone hanging in the sky. Liz belatedly realized that none of them had the stones that they had been holding in their hands.  
  
"Liz, look!" Isabel called. Just before stepping back into the tornado, the monster seemed to have been taken by a coughing fit. As Liz watched, it retched Alex out of its huge mouth, (ewww!) and leapt for the tornado.  
  
Liz and Isabel hurried over towards Alex... and then Liz realized that they were back in the pod chamber, leaning over his body with healing stones in hand.  
  
Alex opened his eyes and screamed, a cry that shook Liz to the depths of her soul. She noticed that Alex was breathing - not labored breath but with a very deliberate and methodical rhythm, as if he was scared that if he didn't breathe consciously, his reflex would no longer take care of the task. Liz quickly reached out to check his pulse -- it was ragged but there, and getting stronger. Liz couldn't help but wonder whether he had gone into cardiac arrest for a second or two at the end of the healing ritual, but there was no way to tell.  
  
"Alex, are you okay?" Isabel asked him.  
  
"I... am not... okay," Alex gasped out between breaths, and then he paused. Looked up into Isabel's face. "I am having difficulty holding onto reality."  
  
"What?" Maria asked hoarsely.  
  
Alex sat up until he could get a look at Maria and shook himself. "Sorry... was'little confused." He took in his surroundings more clearly. "Healing stones??"  
  
"Yeah," Liz agreed, looking into her old friends' eyes and searching for a clue as to whether he would be alright. "Did they do any good?"  
  
"Some," Alex agreed, shaking his head, "but I don't think enough. You've bought me time, I suspect, no more. The stones can't fix what's wrong with me permanently, and you guys can't keep transfusing energy into me long."  
  
"What... what happened to you, Alex?" Isabel broke in. "Did Tess... could she really have done this to you?"  
  
"That's a long story, Isabel," Alex said, shuffling across the floor so his back was up against the pod chamber wall. "But the short answer is 'yes'." 


	3. Part 3

Title: Tapping Fingers  
  
Part: 3  
  
Author: Chris Kenworthy  
  
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net  
  
Homepage: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.  
  
Category: Sci-fi drama. CC, alt timeline  
  
Spoilers: Up to 'cry your name'  
  
Michael looked at the delegation that had arrived at his apartment - Tess, Max, and Kyle - and tried to put his finger on what seemed so weird. "So, there's a shapeshifter Liz running around?"  
  
Kyle looked at Tess. Tess nudged Max ever so slightly with an elbow. "Umm... Yeah. She was -- she was acting really weird, and then -- then, she tried to attack me!! And, uh, at the end... it wasn't her face, it was all creature-ey."  
  
Michael snapped to closer attention. "Oh, my god, you're serious! Where... what about Maria? And Isabel!! Do we know where they are??"  
  
"Haven't been able to reach Maria," Tess rhymed off. "Isabel got a phone call and took off from the Crashdown. It's possible that both of them may be with the impostor."  
  
"We have to find them!!" Michael charged up from the couch and grabbed a jacket. "They could be in danger, right now... um, what are we all doing standing around here for??"  
  
"We can't just charge off and joust against the windmill here, Michael," Kyle suggested. "We don't know what kind of alien this is - what she, or it, is capable of. Until we do, everyone is safer - Maria and Isabel included - if we don't make any sudden moves that might alarm 'her'."  
  
"How do we know that?" Michael growled. "We don't know what its agenda is."  
  
"We don't, for sure, but it seems to be the best shot we've got," Max said, grabbing at Michael's arm. "Don't you see that this is killing me? We don't even know what's happened to the *real* Liz." Tess seemed to tick in frustration at that, but it got the point across to Michael.  
  
"Action in the absence of information is counter-productive," Kyle quoted softly.  
  
Michael groaned again and collapsed into the Lay-Z-boy, waving Max onto the couch. "Okay, well, let's go over what information we do have, then. Where did you meet this shapeshifter??"  
  
"Ummm..." Max froze for a second. "At my place. She told me that she wanted to get back together, but something seemed weird, so I asked her something that only Liz would know about..."  
  
"Oh, right, what did you use," Michael asked with interest, "the night you guys found the orbs??"  
  
"Ummm... uh, n-no," Max stuttered. "Blind date contest."  
  
"You used that??" Michael shook his head. "I mean, half the town knows at least parts of..."  
  
"That isn't the point," Tess broke in crossly. "Go on, Max." She smiled at him.  
  
"Umm... anyways, she tried to bluff her way through, but could tell it wasn't working. That was when she changed her face and attacked me. I used the shield, and she ran off."  
  
"Okay," Michael muttered. "So, what's our next step? We need to do some careful recon, I guess, finding out where our shifter is, what she's doing, who's with her."  
  
"We've got Jim Valenti on that, doing a patrol around town of the likely spots," Tess said. "He'll let us know what he finds out. We figured that the shifter would be less likely to suspect him than any of us."  
  
"Uh... good thinking," Michael muttered, but his spidey-sense was tingling again. Since when did Jim drop everything for patrol duty like this? Admittedly he didn't have much to keep himself busy lately, and Tess had bonded with him over all the months that she had been living at the Valenti house. But something still seemed wrong.  
  
Michael got to his feet and let out a low growl of frustration. "God, it's like Nasedo all over again. No offense, Tess, but you remember when..."  
  
"When he impersonated me and kidnapped Liz," Max finished without missing a beat. "Yeah, that occured to me too."  
  
Okay, scratch one theory. Max, at least, hadn't been replaced by a shapeshifter. At least, Michael didn't really think so. But something was still...  
  
Tess' cell phone rang, and she slapped it to her ear in a second. "Yeah?? Okay, thanks, we'll check it out. Thanks, Jimmy." She hung up and turned to the rest of them. "The Jetta is up at the Whitman's house, but the place looks deserted. We can look for clues there."  
  
"Alex," Michael muttered. He'd forgotten the guy - he had to admit he tended to sometimes. But how did Alex Whitman fit into all of this?  
  
"We'll take the Jeep," Max decided.  
  
* * * *  
  
"I really thought I was headed to Sweden," Alex said. He was nestled in a corner of the Pod chamber, with the three girls spread out in a loose circle around him, faint blue light illuminating the room. "But when I got to the airport, Tess was waiting for me. When I understood that it was all a trick, I tried to get away -- at least, I wanted to get away. But I couldn't make my body co-operate, and then, she kept me from wanting to."  
  
"She was gloating in her scheme. Drove me over to Las Cruces, She must have made some arrangements beforehand for the people at the quantum project to expect me, aka Ray Anderson, a hotshot teenage software engineer from Albuquerque. But she didn't realize how complicated it was to maintain a web of lies that big, to keep everyone from getting suspicious. There were times it looked like everything would blow up in her face - she was far enough out of my mind that I hoped they would. But we just managed to squeak through."  
  
"Translating the book was incredibly difficult. The Quantum software was only partially successful at making transcriptions between fairly similar human languages, and this was a source text completely different from anything on earth. I think she didn't expect that it would take so long."  
  
"Which would explain why your 'trip to Sweden' got extended, again and again," Liz said, seeing it.  
  
"Yeah. I won't go into all the details of the work I was doing, because it's so not the point. But the more tired and stressed out I got, the more Tess would *push* me. I hated her so much by then, hated how vulnerable she was making me. She never changed the hate - either she liked it or she knew she couldn't waste the effort to make me adore her."  
  
"And, of course, she kept dragging me around and taking pictures that she could alter so that I'd have a slide show when I came back from 'Sweden.' In the end, I had to tie her into the transcription process - give her a series of partial results and choose the one that looks best. Since she, like the rest of you aliens, had an intuitive familiarity with the Book writing. And it worked."  
  
"She altered my memories when I got back to Roswell, replaced them with 'Sweden.' But she couldn't keep the true memories buried forever. So she also implanted a trigger that when I started to remember, I'd go back to her. And she'd cover her tracks again. It happened over, and over, and over again -- working for a shorter period each time. I could tell that something was going on, that my brain couldn't handle this. I begged her to just leave me be, that I wouldn't ruin her secret, but..." Alex was crying now. "But she wouldn't listen to me..."  
  
Isabel scrambled over to hold Alex in a comforting hug. "It's okay, it's okay Alex. We're going to make it all beter."  
  
"How??" he wailed. Liz and Maria shared a look -- that was the question of the hour, after all.  
  
"Do -- do you have any bright ideas, Alex??" Maria asked softly.  
  
Alex dried his eyes, and thought for a long moment. "Max. He might be able to heal my mind."  
  
"I tried to call him over to your house, back when things were first breaking," Liz told him softly. "He said he'd come right over, but he never showed. We think Tess ran into him - that she might have convinced him not to help us, or something."  
  
"Oh, god, no..." Alex moaned.  
  
"Michael!!" Isabel blurted out.  
  
Alex looked at her. "What was that??"  
  
"What about Michael??" Maria asked suspiciously at the same time.  
  
Isabel looked at them. "I'm not moving in on Michael," she assured them both. "It's just... he's the last piece of the pod squad we don't know about. He's the wild card, maybe. If he's with Max and Tess..." she sighed, "then to be honest I'm not sure how we can stand against them. If we could get him on our side, though..."  
  
"It's a good notion," Liz said. "And in any event, we can't stay here in the Pod chamber forever. I think it's time to head back into town - take the fight to Tess. One step at a time, of course."  
  
"Yeah, let's roll," Alex agreed, struggling to his feet.  
  
"Are you sure you're in any shape to be marching off to battle?" Isabel said doubtfully.  
  
"First off, we'll be driving off to battle," Alex pointed out. "And I'm stronger now than I'll be tomorrow, unless we get Max back. Let's go."  
  
* * * *  
  
"Thai food delivery, untouched," Michael pointed it out and then moved on. "Picture of Leanna. Liz's crashdown alien antenna..." the barette had been marked with L PARKER on the inside. "Was the imposter wearing these at your place, Maxwell??"  
  
"Um, uh..." Max seemed caught off guard by the question, and hesitated a remarkably long time. "Uh, no, no, she wasn't."  
  
"What was she wearing?? Any part of the uniform?"  
  
"N-no, just a t-shirt and jeans."  
  
"And this was when??"  
  
"What does it matter when it was?" Tess exploded.  
  
"Everything might be a clue," Michael pointed out. "Especially the exact circumstances of Max's run-in with our alien shapeshifter."  
  
"Ummm, uh..." Max looked at his own watch. "A few minutes after two."  
  
"Hmm." Michael thought about that. "I might be wrong, but I think she and Maria were supposed to go on shift at two. I wonder if that relates." He continued itemizing the clues that they'd found. "Key ring, with front door key that fits the front door lock, left dropped near said front door. So presumably Alex's keys. Maria's cell phone. And another picture, this one of Alex..." Michael frowned at it for a second. "I know this one - Isabel carries it around." He thought about it. "But where did they all go? The Jetta is still here, so is Alex's dad's car. Any idea where his dad and mom are, anyway??"  
  
"Convention up in Santa Fe," Kyle mentioned, looking at the calendar. "Probably took a taxi to the airport yesterday."  
  
"But where did our people go??" Michael repeated. "Alex, Isabel, Maria, and either Liz or the fake Liz were here."  
  
"Isabel had my mom's car," Max pointed out. "They could have gone anywhere in it."  
  
Michael considered that disspiritedly. "Maybe we should see if we can get any flashes off this stuff."  
  
"No!" Tess blurted out again. "Michael, something really bad happened here, I can feel it. We need to go somewhere safe, get ready for when IT comes after us. It'll find us soon enough, and we need to be ready."  
  
"Yeah. We can use my place," Kyle suggested.  
  
Michael looked to Max, who shrugged his agreement. "Okay, I guess." They filed slowly out, and Tess closed the door behind her.  
  
* * * *  
  
"So," Alex asked softly from the rear seat of the car. "Any idea where we go, once we get into town??"  
  
Isabel and Liz exchanged a glance, up front. "Michael's apartment," Isabel decided. "It's a risk, but it also has the best chance of gain."  
  
They drove along in silence for a while, and then Liz spoke up. "Alex, do you have any idea WHY Tess went to such great lengths to decode the Book in secret? Why wouldn't she have brought this to Max, Isabel, and Michael openly - aside from the fact that she had to push you so hard to get the job done, which she didn't know at the time."  
  
"Well, among other things, the Book apparently has instructions on using the Granilith to go home," Alex said softly. "It's a spaceship of sorts, or at least it can be used as one. I think that Tess wants to pull that fact out of her pocket at a very specific moment, as it were, when travelling back would cement her relationship with Max. And leave you with no hope of ever getting him back."  
  
"Oh, great," Liz whispered. The term 'cement a relationship' brought back memories of Future Max and his warnings, though Alex obviously wasn't using the phrase the same way.  
  
"That's not really the point right now, what Tess does or doesn't mean to do with the granilith," Isabel pointed out. "Right now, our priority is to make Alex better. Then that Max isn't caught up in Tess' web."  
  
When they got to Michael's apartment, there was no answer at the door and no light of movement visible through the windows. They checked the Crashdown cafe, Max and Isabel's place, (very carefully, since it was all too easy to imagine Max and Tess waiting for them there for them.) But no luck, although Diane Evans said that Max had been calling asking for Isabel, she had no idea where he was now. She also asked for her car back, a request that was accomodated after some shuttling back and forth to the Whitman house.  
  
At which point, something strange started to become clear. The front door of Alex's place was locked, and he didn't have his keys. Liz wondered whether they had managed to lock themselves out in their hurry to get Alex to the healing stones, but Maria insisted that she had checked to make sure the front door was unlocked before they left, just in case.  
  
They finally got in through the back, using a safety key. In the living room, it was evident that a few items had been moved - personal effects that they had left behind in the hurry, which made it clear that all four of them had been there.  
  
"Tess knows," Maria whispered softly. "She knows that all four of us were together, and that we know her secret. That we know what she did."  
  
"Let's go," Liz declared, picking up the clues and heading for the front door. "No more time for kidding around. I think we'll all know where we can find Michael - in the belly of the beast."  
  
"Kyle's place," Maria groaned.  
  
They parked the Jetta a long way away from the Valenti house and quietly crept closer. Kyle was sitting on the front porch, and Michael standing near the side door, as Jim prowled around the area. Of Tess and Max, there was no sign.  
  
"They're inside," Isabel guessed. "She's protecting her King." The notion of this showdown as a deadly game of chess was almost impossible to resist by now.  
  
"Yeah, but we're not after her king right now," Maria whispered back. "We just want to capture the... should Michael be a rook or a knight??"  
  
"Does it matter?" Isabel shot back. "The question is -- how do we get to him without Sheriff Valenti spotting us?"  
  
They hurried back from the premises a ways to plan strategy without being visible from Valenti's beat. "I've got an idea," Liz mentioned. "You may not like it, though, Isabel."  
  
"I don't care if I like it," she snapped back. "I'll do whatever I have to to make sure Alex is okay."  
  
"You dreamwalk Michael, right now."  
  
There was a silence. Dreamwalking someone while they were wide awake was something that Isabel never liked to try, and had rarely been able to achieve. But...  
  
"Okay, I'll try. But I think the chances are better if I put Maria in to speak to him."  
  
"Me!!" The word came out in a squeak from Maria's throat.  
  
"Ahh, I get it," Liz whispered quietly.  
  
"When I was trying to warn Max at the Summit, I couldn't get him to see me, while he was awake," Isabel explained. "But Liz could get through, because he loves her. Michael loves her."  
  
"But... but Liz is 'changed,'" Maria pointed out. "I'm just a regular human, can you really dreamwalk me into Michael's head??"  
  
"I hope so," Isabel sighed. "It's the best chance we've got."  
  
"And -- and Max didn't hear Liz. He just saw her and couldn't hear what she was saying. It was just sheer luck that in trying to get closer to her, he stepped away from Lonnie's trap," Maria continued to babble. "What if Michael can't hear me."  
  
"Hopefully, the fact that we're doing this at closer range will help," Isabel muttered. "Have you got a picture of Michael??"  
  
Maria quickly extracted a snapshot from her purse and handed it over. Isabel tapped it and started concentrating deeply.  
  
* * * *  
  
Michael waited impatiently for Valenti to come around again. When he cleared the back corner of the house, Michael called off softly. "Hey, how 'bout we switch jobs for a bit??"  
  
Jim Valenti just stared at him for a second. "Come on, I'm bored, and I can patrol just as well as you. Better, with the whoosh."  
  
"All right, can't see why not." Jim took up position at the side door, and Michael started to circle the premises. After having completed one loop, Valenti scowled at him. "Got your dawdle on, boy??"  
  
Michael ignored him, but as soon as he was out of sight he hurried down the street.  
  
"Boo!!" Isabel stepped out from behind a hedge and quickly pulled him in. "You got the message?"  
  
"Yeah." Michael quickly kissed Maria hello, then swept his eyes across Liz and a tired-looking Alex. "So, what's the deal??" He quietly massed his powers, ready to use them in case he had to.  
  
"Okay -- Tess took Alex to Las Cruces to decode the book when we all thought he was in Sweden, and because she's mind-warped him so much we need Max to heal him or Alex could die." Isabel evaluated her ramble, then shrugged, figuring there was nothing else critical to say.  
  
"Ah." Michael turned to Liz. "And I suppose you'll tell me you're not a shapeshifter??"  
  
Liz blinked in surprise. "No, just one hundred percent authentic Liz Parker in here. And if you want proof, I'll just mention that neither of us ever told anyone that you were the one who stole my diary, a month after I got shot. Right??"  
  
Maria, Isabel, and Alex's various degrees of shock backed that up. "Right."  
  
"So Tess said that I was a shapeshifter?" Liz asked.  
  
"Tess, and Max," Michael confirmed. "Max was the one who said he'd seen you, but Tess seemed to be pulling his strings a little, if you know what I mean." Suddenly pounding feet were coming their way from the Valenti house. "Let's clear out, we can discuss everything else later!"  
  
"Get Alex back to the car," Maria called out. "I'll create a diversion."  
  
"Okay." Michael pecked her goodbye quickly, and then followed Liz as she led the way, helping Isabel out with Alex. Soon they were all crowded into the Jetta, leaving some room for Maria.  
  
"There she is," Liz pointed Maria out, running towards the car from a different direction. Valenti was chasing her, but there was no way he'd catch up in time.  
  
Suddenly Isabel cranked the ignition and pulled away, leaving Maria raging in frustration at being left behind. "Wh- what did you do that for??" Michael complained.  
  
"That wasn't Maria, Michael," Isabel told him. "Couldn't you feel the mind warp??" Michael caught one more glimpse before they were out of range, and sure enough he could tell that it hadn't been Maria. It was Tess that he had almost let into the car.  
  
"But Maria..."  
  
"They've got her now," Liz sighed. "But don't worry, I don't think Tess will hurt her. Now that we've got you and Isabel, we have a fighting chance."  
  
Michael had to admit he could see the sense in it. Trading himself for Maria - a net gain to the good guys side. But he couldn't help but worry about her. Considering that Kyle and Jim Valenti seemed, in retrospect, near-zombies doing Tess Harding's will, would Maria fare much better??  
  
"Where to now?" Alex muttered, obviously also sick with worry about Maria.  
  
Isabel and Liz shared a long glance once again. "Back to my place, for now," Isabel suggested. "Tess can't come there without producing Max. That would make her vulnerable."  
  
"Okay," Michael agreed. "Then we need to come up with some serious strategy."  
  
* * * *  
  
When she realized that they had somehow seen through her ploy, Tess hurried back to where she had tripped Maria and left her with her leg asleep so she wouldn't be able to move easily.  
  
As Tess approached, the human girl flailed in fear, but it was simple to hold back her arms with kinesis so that she couldn't attack, and touch at the base of her head. A simple connection and adjustment to some of the brain's chemical balances, and it was done. Humans were so much easier to deal with.  
  
Maria looked up into Tess' face with awe. "I'm... I'm sorry."  
  
"That's okay," Tess told her sincerely. "Isabel and Liz. How much do they know??"  
  
"That Alex never really went to Sweden..." Maria began.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED!!! 


	4. Part 4

Part Four

"Maybe we could capture Maria back," Isabel suggested earnestly. "Michael can snap her out of it, just like we used Maria to get through to Michael." She looked around at the rest of them. "Right?"

From the look on Michael's face, he would have liked nothing better to agree with Isabel, but he knew better. "Two things. First, having lost me, Tess is going to be keeping a much closer watch on everyone she's got left. Second, I wasn't even under her influence: not really. Max and Tess just lied to me to get me on their side. Maria's under full mind control."

There was a pause. "Okay, well, umm..." Liz started, but at that point she was interrupted.

"What about mind control?" All four of them turned around. Diane Evans was standing at the doorway of her upstairs den, where the four of them were gathered. An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment.

"Maria's on 'mind control... in advertising'" Alex blurted out suddenly.

"Yeah," Isabel agreed, seizing on the lifeline. "In our big project for manipulation and the media."

"Oh." Mrs. Evans nodded agreeably. "Do you guys want to order in pizza or something?"

Another series of glances exchanged. "Yeah, pizza's cool," Michael agreed.

Mrs Evans smiled. "So -- that'll be one large with hot peppers, italian sausage, and pineapple," and she waved at her daughter and her longtime friend young Mister Guerin, and then she looked at Liz and Alex. "You guys okay with sharing a pepperoni and mushroom, or what?"

Liz shot a surprised look at Alex, who shrugged a little uncomfortably. "Uh, sure, I guess," Liz agreed tentatively, and Alex nodded. Michael and Isabel, for their part, looked nervous too - embarrased that Isabel's mom was intruding at such a moment with pizza of all things, and startled at how well she knew them both by now.

"Okay, I'll call it in," Diane Evans chirrupped, unaware of most of what was being said by her daughter and young guests. But not entirely clueless, perhaps. "Alex -- are you okay? You don't look like your usual charming self." She cocked her head as she looked at him - all nurturing concern.

"Yeah, uh... just a little stressed about the project," he managed, not unconvincingly.

A little later the four of them were munching on their first slices and settling back to work. "Hmmm... the Granilith," Isabel announced, after checking one more time to make sure that her mom wasn't listening again. "Is there any way that we can use that to our advantage?"

"Maybe, but how -- we don't even know what it does," Michael pointed out.

"Actually, we do, a little," Alex said. "Sorry, guess we didn't mention that when catching you up to speed. A lot of the stuff in the book was about the Granilith. It can be used as a spaceship, to take you guys back to Antar."

"Which doesn't really help us, especially if we don't know how to use it," Liz pointed out.

"We could try to get Max and Maria to it, and then blast off before Tess could..." Isabel brainstormed. "No, that probably wouldn't work. Try to trick Tess into using it herself?"

"She never would, not without Max," Michael corrected. He turned back to Alex. "Is there anything else you can remember from the Book? Any bit of information could help, especially if it's about the four of us - our powers and vulnerabilities. Tess knows more in that department than we do, I'm afraid."

Alex concentrated. "No... that was the only tidbit I was able to keep, I think. Tess concentrated hard on wiping my memories of the translation, for obvious reasons."

Liz turned to Isabel. "Can you think of any way that you can use your dreamwalking talent to help? Either to get through to Max, or to find out more about Tess' plans, or something like that?"

Isabel thought about it. "Maybe. FOr that kind of thing - no kidding around, I'd need to wait until they go to sleep."

"Maybe that's not a bad idea anyway," Alex pointed out. "I mean, the four of us are really working together, and we can watch out for each other. Tess is really all alone - all of her people are under mind control to some degree or another. It'd be hard for her to trust them enough to rest."

"I'll be back in a bit," Michael muttered, getting up. "Need to take a little break."

He went to the bathroom, and then wandered around for a bit, looking for somewhere he could sit by himself in some peace and quiet. He ended up in Max's room, sitting on the bed, unable to escape the fact that every little thing surrounding him spoke volumes about the guy who had been like a brother to him ever since they had found each other again. The microscope and other science paraphernalia on the desk. The 'UFO enthusiast monthly' magazines that he bought for so many reasons - to keep up with the latest trends that might hit the museum, to watch for any tidbits that actually seemed to have real significance - and to laugh at most of the rest. The picture of Liz that he still kept inside the drawer of his bedside table.

"Hey, man." A knock rapped out on the door. "Do you want to be alone, or is it alright if I come in?"

No, Michael realized suddenly that he didn't want to be by himself, he just wanted to be away from the desperate battle plans for a moment. "Naw, man, come on in."

Alex pulled out the desk chair and half collapsed into it. "This is -- this is awkward, Michael, but there were some things I wanted to ask you. In case I... in case I don't make it."

Michael jumped, "Now, Alex... you can't... and even so, there's no g..."

"I believe this--" Alex interrupted. "No matter WHAT, you guys are gonna kick Tess' butt. But it may not be in time for me - I hope it will be, but I can't afford to assume a guarantee where there really isn't any. In that event, there are just a few things I want you to take care of me. Things that I couldn't ask of Liz or Isabel."

Michael took a moment to absorb that, and realized that there was no way he could refuse - he'd probably be asking the same thing of Alex if the situation were reversed. "Okay, what things?"

"Let's see, ummm..." Alex took a second to try and organize his thoughts. "In the top right drawer of the desk in my room at home, there's a manuscript. Try and... I dunno, do whatever you can with it. Throw it up on the web, send it to a magazine." He smirked morbidly. "Put a few pages of it in the yearbook - under my memorial."

"Alex..."

"Those pages are the best I've ever come to expressing myself," he insisted. "They're not finished yet - but if what we're talking about happens, they're never going to be. If I have to die at seventeen, I want people to see them."

Michael nodded. "Second?"

"It's about Isabel." Alex grimaced slightly. "I don't know how hard my death would hit her. Maybe it wouldn't, really..."

"Come on - Alex. She'd be shattered. You know that."

Alex smiled weakly. "Not really the point I was getting at. If she is... try to make sure she moves on, alright?"

"You're not serious."

"I am. I love her, and that's forever. To whatever extent she loves me, that's forever too. But that doesn't mean that she shouldn't have a life - shouldn't fall in love again. Promise."

Michael twisted his face for a second. "I'll do what I can. What's next?"

"Make sure you kick her ass once extra, for me?"

Michael smiled.

----------

It was several hours later, and a lot of earnest strategy discussion had, in the end, come to nothing. Isabel groaned, tore away several pages from her college-size ruled notepad, crumpled them up, converted the paper into dusty ashes with a frustrated look, and began again.

"We need to know what Tess wants at this point if we have any chance of coming up with a plan against her," she muttered, pausing to see if anyone else would chime in.

"She won't lie low forever," Liz agreed. "She's probably coming to the realization that we're holed up somewhere, if she isn't there already. Without needing to worry too much against an attack from us, she can go after her own ends... but what else, if anything, does she want?"

"US," Michael put in, and Liz turned to stare at him. "Not you actually, Liz -- Isabel and me. She wants the Royal Four reunited again, on her own terms."

"But is she really bold enough to take us on when we're together and try to convert us against our will?" Isabel mused.

"No," Alex moaned. He was visisbly the worse for the time the four of them had spent fruitlessly looking for a perfect plan. Most of the good that the energy transfer had done him seemed to have slipped away now, and he refused to let them do another, saying that power was something that none of them could waste now. "I don't think she's that confident, or we'd have seen her influence on Max sooner."

"Well then what?" Isabel asked. "Alex, you probably know her best now -- she's let down her guard around you. You've seen behind the mask."

For answer, all Alex did to start with was close his eyes and keen softly, struggling against some exquisite inner pain. "Max," he muttered, and it was hard to tell if he was deliberately answering Isabel's question or not. "She's obsessed with Max Evans - with Zan, we all know that. If her hold on him is strong enough, she'll want to disappear with him, start a new life somewhere else."

"On another planet, using the Granilith?" Liz prompted softly.

"No... don't think so. She was angry about that, in the Book trensleeshun," Alex mumbled, almost incomprehensibly. "It told her how to use the granilith and find the key, but no haven to fly to where she and Max would be safe."

"Then..." Isabel breathed, starting to piece it together.

"She'll hit the road," Alex continued as if he were in a trance. "Good at hiding - growing up with Nasedo taught her how to do that really well. Not even you or Michael could find her if she doesn't want to be found."

The three of them exchaged a horrified glance. Michael got up the nerve to ask the last question.

"If she goes... what about Kyle, and mister Valenti, and Maria? Would she take them with her, would she let them go, or..." He couldn't even voice the third possibility.

The notion startled Alex out of his strange daze, and he looked up into Michael's eyes with his face full of dread. "That's not how she operates, man. They'd be liabilities... she'd terminate them. There'd be no reason for her to care anymore."

"Well, she might try to reprogram Kyle to think he's really her brother, or something, and have him join them. If she thought that would be safe. And it's not out of the question that she'd mindwipe Jim Valenti of anything incriminating and leave him be - he took her in, and she's not entirely uncapable of gratitude for that. But Maria..." He broke off, forcing himself to keep looking into Michael's face. "I'm sorry, man, I didn't think of it like this before, or I'd have said something sooner..."

"We've been wasting time that we don't have," Isabel announced, and reached out to snatch the cordless phone so quickly that none of the rest of them could make out her hand in the vicinity of the table, just ZZZIP and it was in her hand. (Or maybe she didn't reach out at that, but just PULLED the telephone to her mentally - none of them were sure afterwards, even Isabel.)

She took an instant's breath before hitting the speed dial. and the telephone on the other end didn't have to ring for long before somebody apparently picked up. "Max, put the bitch on."

Liz was starting to shake her head... in a mix of confusion and a sense that something had to be done to stop whatever was going on, but she didn't get any further than that. "Hi, Tess?" Isabel said a moment, later. "Let's talk deal. There's business to be done before you leave Roswell."

Liz could actually hear the voice on the other end of the phone in that stillness, very faintly. "Well Izzy, the car's all packed and everything! What on earth do you have to say that could convince me to postpone our departure?"

Isabel cut right to the chase. "You have Max heal Alex, and I'll go with you. Whatever you want. I just can't bear to see him die."

The bedlam that erupted in the room... well, was still pretty quiet in an absolute sense, but quite a shock compared to the eerie quiet that had preceded Isabel's proposal. And yet, even as she mumbled something about how Isabel couldn't promise that, she saw the sense in it. A life freely offered for a life saved, and everybody got something that they wanted.

But Isabel was shaking her head - Tess wasn't jumping for the deal. Liz could guess why -- she was worried about a possible trap, or that Alex's knowledge of Tess herself - if he lived - could represent a threat to all of her plans.

But that was really only a consideration if there was still someone with the power to press an attack using those secrets... and Michael had already made that connection. He pointed to himself and made some series of other hand gestures which Liz couldn't assign any literal meaning to - but it was easy enough to guess what he was wanting to convey.

"And Michael too," Isabel added. "In exchange for Maria's release, and your word that you won't hurt Kyle or Mister Valenti." There was a long moment, and then a quick "we'll be there," and Isabel disconnected the call. "Twenty minutes - West Roswell high, north corridor."

"You..." Alex fought down a coughing fit. "You can't do this, Isabel."

"I'm not sure I'll have to." A crafty grin spread across her perfect features. "I'm ready to go through with this if Tess does, and I think you are too, Michael -- but I'm almost sure she won't play ball. She'll try to doublecross us, because we've already admitted we're weak in her eyes by bargaining with our own lives."

"And then?" Liz asked, guessing the answer.

"And then we quadruple-cross HER, and take care of a little overdue business," Michael smiled, keeping a nasty chuckle buried at gut level.

----------

The hallway was dark, except for a few lights streaming out from open classroom doors, spotted here on this side of the corridor, and there on the opposite. Michael and Isabel walked up from the south end. Tess was waiting at the very north, just next to the doors that led in from the stairway vestibule. It was as if she'd known which way they'd be taking, coming in, and was waiting where they'd have to cover the maximum ground to get to her.

She wasn't alone, of course. Max was by her side, Maria back a little behind both of them, and the two Valenti men were off to either side, watching the approaching hybrids warily. It seemed to Isabel that aside from Tess herself, everyone in the entourage was even more 'out of it' than before. "All right, we're here," she announced when they were about fifteen feet away.

"Not all of us," Tess replied evenly, arching an eyebrow expressively. "You want Max to heal Alex, so he has to be here. And I'm sure that Liz wouldn't want to miss any of the goodbyes, now would she?"

"Are you ready to have Max heal Alex right now?" Michael countered. Tess remained silent, which he took as answer enough. "When you are, he will be here. Not before."

Tess took stock for a moment, and then nodded, stepping slowly towards the two of them. "Alright. Well, I knew that the two of you didn't want me to do anything that might compromise your objectivity before your little friend is cured..." She must have been able to read their reactions well enough. "I thought so. And yet it occurs to me that once Whitman is okay, you might try taking your chances at that point instead of following through with the deal. It's a tricky situation."

She unslung something from the back of her shoulder, that Isabel hadn't seen before - it was a large plastic drinking bottle, filled with a vibrant reddish-purple liquid. "So -- let's call this a gesture of trust; a purely symbolic one. We share a drink together, the three of us, and then Max will take care of your sweet little baby." She grinned fiercely. "Michael?"

Michael had a moment where it looked like he was about to object or ask a question, but apparently he thought better of it. He took the bottle that Tess had offered, unscrewed the lid, and gestured with it in a vague toasting motion. "To negotiation." With that, be brought the opening to his lips and let a generous amount of the juice flow into his mouth. Isabel could see his throat muscles working, swallowing, and he opened his lips slightly and let out a breath, then drank again. The level was down by nearly a quarter when he passed it along to her.

Isabel shot a curious look at Tess as she fished a silk hankerchief idly out of her pocket and wiped around the neck of the bottle. "Why is this so important to you? Why does it change anything?"

"It's just a token," Tess assured her. "Drinking together before extending a trust."

"And what's in the bottle?" Isabel pressed.

"Some kind of juice," she answered, her voice light but betraying an inner frustration beginning to grow. "It's the nearest earth equivalent to something Nasedo told me about. Now just shut up and drink, or I swear to you I will walk away and let that geeky beanpole with the outrageous ears die!"

Isabel could feel her face flush at the way Tess spoke to her, but she knew what she had to do. She brought the bottle to her own lips, and didn't even register the taste of the liquid as it hit her tongue.

She noticed the expression on Tess' face though. The edges of her mouth began to turn up in the slightest indication of a smile of triumph.

TO BE CONTINUED... 


	5. Part 5

Part Five 

Tess watched carefully as Isabel swallowed, making sure that she drank as deeply as Michael had. Once Isabel handed the bottle back to her, she put the cap on and threw it back over her shoulder - one thing was for sure, SHE wasn't going to drink any of it, lest the trap hit her as badly as it had just hit Michael and Isabel. To be suggestible to their comments, or Liz Parker's... no thanks. They should be doped up enough not to know or care that she hadn't followed through with the toast. "We're leaving now."

They followed her agreeably enough, but just then Liz Parker showed up at the door that Tess' own party had come through from, propping Alex up beside her. Ahh, that was a moderately clever maneuver, really. Sending two and two from opposite directions, to cut off her retreat. Too bad for Liz that her two strong friends had already been taken care of, and only herself and the nearly-dead Whitman were left. They were no threat.

"Hold her," she told Valenti, indicating Liz. Jim stepped forward, and even though Liz tried to back away, he caught her forarms and held them spread apart, using that leverage to lead her away from the doorway. Alex collapsed to his hands and knees, and Tess kicked him herself to send him scrambling out of her route as he best could.

But when she stepped forward this time, something was wrong. Isabel and Michael weren't moving to follow her this time, they were standing still. "Come on," she insisted, but they remained irresolute, and Isabel even took a tentative step towards her little human sweetheart. "Okay then, we'll do this the slow way, right here you bitch. LET ME IN!" She caught Isabel's shoulder, and when the taller girl looked down, she caught her eyes and made the connection.

And every fiber of her brain screamed, although there was no way for her vocal cords to respond to the pain.

Isabel had not reacted to the gooseberry drug at all, she wasn't suggestible, but had been playing along, faking it, biding her time. When Tess had tried to solidify her control, Isabel had realized the moment had come to drop the pretense, and unleashed a powerful, if untrained, mental counterattack just when Tess had been least expecting it.

Tess wasn't badly hurt by Isabel's opening salvo, but after firing back a mental shock wave that wasn't any more powerful and getting stunned by a psychic left hook, she decided that she wasn't going to stick around and slug things out like this. For one thing, there was...

She broke the connection just too late to see it coming, and a wave of kinetic force knocked her through a full circle in midair and then smack down on her butt and upper back simultaneously (which hurt like hell!) But she knew that just lying down like she wanted to die would be the end of all of her plans, so she forced herself to jump right back up and send a counter-wave back at Michael, which knocked him quite satisfyingly against a wall, even if that probably didn't hurt as much as she'd hoped.

At that point, Michael got an odd expression on his face and spat out what looked like a disk of semi-solid purple jelly maybe three inches in diameter out of his mouth, so that it bounced on the floor one or two times and then came to rest. Confused, she turned to Isabel, who also spewed out a similar object, though with a little less flair and energy, so that it only just missed SPLATTing on her knee.

Suddenly it came clear to her that these jelly disks held the key to why Isabel and Michael hadn't been affected by her gooseberry juice ploy. "You... you were expecting the juice," she muttered. "Somehow... Whitman warned you, didn't he?" She had forgotten that she had blabbed about the secrets that Nacedo had told her while Alex was in Las Cruces, that she had taunted him about the ways she could trick his friends.

"And you just pretended to fall into the trap," she continued, "extracting everything that wasn't pure water molecules from the juice you drank, swallowing the water so that I thought the juice would be entering your system, and leaving all the other molecules inside those gelatin pouches you could leave tucked in the corner of your mouth without it being too obvious." Isabel nodded slightly. "Well, I have to admit, that's pretty impressive."

"Thanks," Isabel said dryly. "And since you broke the deal and tried to walk away with everything and giving up nothing, then all deals are off. MICHAEL! Do it!"

----------

Isabel steeled herself as best she could... this was when the whole conflict would be decided, pretty much, and hers was arguably the hardest job. She faced Tess, pointed her hand, and hoped that this trick worked as well in an actual crisis situation as when she had practiced it.

A jolt of purple lightning flashed from her hand to streak into Tess's body, multiple arcs of current making contact with her head, upper arms, and chest. The impact knocked her back, towards the south. Good. Now all Isabel needed to do was keep her there somehow.

She heard and sensed the rest of what was going on more than seeing it -- Michael using a small jolt of kinetic power to drive Jim Valenti away from Liz, and then physically herding the senior Valenti, along with his son and Maria, into a corner of the hallway. The three mind-controlled humans, who also had to be kept away from the true scene of the action, lest Tess use them to interfere.

Liz. Max. And Alex. If their plan was going to work, it had to be the three of them who were key.

Max had been acting very dopey and silent through the whole thing, was showing signs of being more alert. Unfortunately, his orientation seemed to still be concern for Tess and utter shock that Michael and Isabel had been treating her so cruelly. That was regrettable, of course, but pretty much what they had expected. It would take everything that Liz had to get through to him.

----------

"Max." Liz brushed away his shaking arms and brought his head up towards hers, trying to make eye contact. For a second she was struck by the incredible parallelism. Nearly two years ago, Max had tried to get Liz to look at him, to make the connection and use his healing powers to save Liz's life from a stray bullet. Now Liz had to get Max to look at her, hopefully to save Max's life, not from death, but from this strange and horrible mental cage that Tess had built around his soul.

"Not to mention keep Alex from dying," she whispered under her breath. And then he looked up at her, those deep brown eyes locking onto hers so intently that nothing else in the world seemed to exist outside of them... and then Max snarled, furious. He looked away, and whipped a furious backhand into Liz's face, knocking her over. Her hopes dashed and her heart broken, Liz looked up to see Kyle standing over her and...

"None of that, hussy!" And Max was staring into her eyes again. No... staring into Liz's eyes still. Everything else had been a mindwarp, which Isabel had somehow been alert enough to catch in progress and interrupt, probably by breaking Tess' concentration, before Liz had really been affected enough by the deception for it to matter.

And Liz Parker smiled inside, confident for the first time since she had realized what Alex had been blurting out to her in his vestibule. Tess knows, a little voice inside her head told her. She has to -- she knows that I can get through to Max. And once I do, it's all over but the shouting.

But she didn't let overconfidence distract her, focusing on Max still, intently. "Come on, Max," she said softly. "You know what Tess is trying to do, deep inside, and you won't stand for it." The conflict between two aspects of his mind seemed to have left Max strangely simple, like a frightened wild animal. She reacted to him as she would to a proud creature of the woods, keeping her voice soothing but firm.

"Max, you once told me that as long as we were together, nothing else mattered. Isabel said that if there was one voice you would hear no matter what, no matter where you are, it was my voice. Well, Max, I'm here, and I hope that my voice can reach you, the real you, deep down inside." Liz realized that tears were streaming down her cheeks. "Because I need you, I need the real Max -- I need you, and Isabel and Michael need you, and Maria and the others, but especially Alex needs you, Max, because he won't survive long without you. And I love you.

"I love you, Max, and I'm so sorry for everything that I felt I had to do, and I want to be with you, the way that we used to be together, if we can, but first you need to come back to me. Only come back to me, and we'll work out everything somehow. I don't even care if we can't be anything, just so long as you come back."

And, not really even knowing why, she leaned in and kissed him once, softly on the lips. He didn't really react, but when Liz pulled back and stared deeply into his eyes, she could se that something was starting to change.

And then, it was like Max shook himself awake. There was no confusion, no uncertainty at all... it was like he had been watching the situation unfold all along and now knew exactly how to proceed, or almost exactly.

"Isabel, you alright with our dear little friend?" The disgust and irony nearly dripped off of his voice.

"YES!" Isabel shrieked. "I'll hold off the bitch queen as long as I need to... take care of Alex!" Liz wanted to go with Max, to watch and make sure that their friend would be okay, but she knew that it would still be safer to play the odds. She stepped up next to Isabel, keeping a careful eye on Tess. She wasn't sure what she'd be able to do if there was an unfortunate turn of events yet, but she might be able to at least call a warning to Michael and Max.

It seemed to take forever, but finally she heard Alex's voice behind her, thanking Max. Isabel obviously wanted to turn around like anything, but couldn't bring herself to turn away from Tess. Until Max tapped her on the shoulder. "Step aside," he whispered. "This is my business now."

"What... what are you..." Isabel stepped aside slightly and Max moved into the space where she had been... and both Isabel and Liz shuddered slightly. Max seemed... awesome, in the sense that wasn't very far away from 'terrifying.'

He was carrying so much righteous fury about him that you could almost see it, a dreadful dark green aura surrounding him in a nimbus of power. Tess seemed to notice it too, or at least she was suddenly shaking after having faced down Isabel calmly and without a tremor.

"How could..." Max breathed softly, then trailed off. After a moment he continued, or maybe began again. "You said that you loved me, Tess. Is that really something that you could do to someone you LOVED?"

For a moment, a familiar arrogance filled Tess' features as she faced Max down defiantly. "I didn't want to do any of that; you know it. YOU drove me to it... you and that --" Tess nodded in Liz's direction, but she seemed to think better of completing the epithet.

"What would you do if you were in my place, Tess?" Max asked her softly.

To Liz's surprise, Tess seemed to consider that question sincerely. "Well, you've made your choice about not going along with my agenda I would think... And you can't be sure about keeping me captive forever. Whoever's on guard would never be able to be certain about what he or she is seeing, never able to let down their guard or I might be able to convert them. And I don't think you have it in you to kill me, which puts you in something of a tight spot." She flashed a sarcastic 'so sorry' face at him for an instant.

"Well, I need to get out of that tight spot, don't I?" Max said slowly, and then with lightning speed his hand whipped out to touch Tess' left temple, ear, and part of her forehead.

Tess gasped in surprise, was silent for about three seconds, and then let out a piercing scream of pure agony. It was as if Max's touch would not let her fall down, even though he wasn't holding her physically or supporting her weight. The others flinched as Tess' pained shriek continued to sound, but for all the expression on Max's face he was not even aware of any of them. The only thing that Liz could see there was utter resolve.

Tess' cry died away, but little else seemed to change in the tableau between she and her wrathful King. Suddenly Liz heard motion about her, and turned to look. Michael and the others were drawing near... Kyle, Jim Valenti, and Maria. Somehow from their faces Liz could tell that Tess' controls had fallen away, and her three friends were once again themselves - probably 'confused-themselves,' but...

Liz had missed something. Max and Tess had both fallen to the floor: she curled up in a fetal position, making unconfortable whimpers and moans, and he struggling to his hands and knees, holding back sobs. Liz and Isabel rushed over to Max while Michael and Jim checked on Tess.

"I didn't want to do it," Max choked out between ragged gasping breaths. "I just wanted to make sure that she'd never hurt any of us again; and she was right - I didn't think I could do it by killing her. But this -- I didn't realize in that moment. Think it's worse than death!"

"I say, 'fry the bitch any damn way you CAN!'" Isabel burst out, and Max turned a pained look up at her. "I'm sorry, it's just... Alex nearly died and she WANTED it to happen... and she zombified you and Maria and the Valentis... and tried to do it to the two of us..." Isabel trailed away uncertainly at that point.

"What... what happened, Max?" Liz asked softly.

"I... I, all I wanted was to make sure that she could never hurt us again," Max mumbled. "Agent Pierce -- when I was in the White Room, he said our powers are rooted in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. So I struck there... at the interface connections actually, between the PFC and the rest of the brain. It wasn't until afterwards that I realized..."

"Oh, my god," Isabel mumbled, starting to realize where this was going. Liz was already there... she had probably picked up more tidbits about how the brain works than both the Evanses put together, and as soon as he had mentioned that particular cortex, the facts about all the perfectly human things it was important for started to flash before her eyes.

"She's brain-damaged now, effectively," Max spat self-loathingly. "Damaged by me. I'm not sure if she'll even wake up, or what she'll be like if she ever does."

"Okay," Michael said, stepping over -- they had been talking loudly enough for him to overhear. "What's next, then? I guess that we can't take her to a hospital... aside from the usual blood test issues, if anyone takes a brain MRI or whatever, they'll have a whole new set of questions we don't want asked, because the pattern of damage probably won't match anything known."

"We take her back home," Jim Valenti announced, standing up and looking down at the fragile figure lying there on the tile. "Take care of her there. It's the least suspicious course of action... at least for now. If there's anything in the way of medical equipment she absolutely needs, I'll probably be able to get ahold of it."

"Are you sure about this?" Isabel asked. "After the way Tess abused your trust, to bring her back into your home again?"

Jim Valenti exchanged a look with Kyle, and finally his son nodded. "She can't hurt us any more, after all," Jim said, nodding himself in confirmation.

"I think there's a stretcher in the nurse's office," Alex pointed out. "That'd be the best available way of getting her to someone's car."

"We'll get it," Max volunteered. "You take it easy there."

"Hey, I'm fine, you don't need to worry about me," Alex insisted as Iz hurried to his side. "I feel like I've got some extra energy to burn off, actually - probably comes of not doing anything strenuous all day."

Liz shook her head a bit at that way of putting it, and Isabel put one arm around Alex and briefly gave the side of his head a once-over. "You feel that good already? No lingering symptoms?"

"No... none at the moment at least. Gotta say, your brother does good work." There was a sudden guilty silence as everyone seemed to realize at once how awkward that sentence was under the circumstances.

Soon enough Max and Kyle were back with the stretcher, and Tess' now-quiet body was quickly moved into the back seat of her own car.

Liz suggested that she and Max stay behind at the school for a bit. The nine of them had arrived in two fairly crowded vehicles, and Tess now kind of took up more space, so there wasn't really room for everyone to leave in the same cars. Maria was going to pick them up in the Jetta as soon as she could.

Jim Valenti drove Tess' car, along with Kyle riding shotgun, while Maria, Michael, Alex, and Isabel all crowded into Mrs Evans' ride, which would soon be returned to her again. Max and Liz sat next to each other on a bench near where the parking lot was seperated from the football field by a high fence.

"I... I can't get my head around how much everything's changed," Max muttered, shaking his head to and fro. "How... how did you figure out what Tess was up to, anyway? I didn't quite hear much of that story, myself."

Liz drew in a breath, reminded of the scene. "It was the freakiest chance, actually. I forgot my antennae at Alex's place and went back for them. As soon as I was through the door, it was obvious that something was wrong... most of the mindwarp had worn off while Maria and I had been out in the car." She gasped as a new ramification hit her. "And he said something about going to Tess... whether that was confusion or a post-mindwarp suggestion I don't know. But if he'd gone to her... I don't even want to think about what would have happened then."

Max nodded soberly. "Well, he's okay, and having nearly lost him, I don't think Isabel will ever take him for granted again... maybe the rest of us too." He hesitated, and then tentatively brushed a bit of Liz's long dark hair away from the side of her face. Liz smiled at the sweet gesture, and Max cleared his throat. "Umm... it's a little fuzzy, but when you were trying to... um, to snap me out of Tess' influence, I think I remember you saying something about..." He trailed off self-consciously.

Liz grinned teasingly. "Yes? You remember something?"

Max paused for a long moment, and then forged bravely ahead. "You... you want us to be 'us' again? To be together?"

Liz nodded, and then impulsively leaned in and kissed him lovingly. "Max, oh, I can't even begin to explain... I've wanted it for so long, only I thought that I had to -- well, right now, today is not the time to explain everything I think. Soon." She sat back, a serious and distraught expression stretching across her whole face.

"What is it? Something's bothering you now, something big," Max said.

"This may sound odd," Liz began slowly. "But I think we need to try to find Ava. Maybe... maybe even convince her to stay in Roswell."

"Whh..." Max seemed to be nearly beyond words. "We can look for her, sure. But -- well, why?"

"I'm not sure yet," Liz admitted. "But I get the feeling that the foursquare was never whole - was never quite right, because of Tess. She... to be capable of all this, she was never a worthy teammate for you, and Isabel and Michael. Ava isn't perfect maybe, but she has a good heart. She helped me to save your life, not standing to get anything in return. Lucky for us that there were two, maybe."

"I dunno, possibly." Max sighed. "But make no mistake... there'll only be one queen in my heart, and that's YOU. No substitutes."

"Glad to hear it," Liz giggled, and melted into Max's arms when he kissed her back.

----------

"That was really good," Isabel murmured into Alex's ear as they walked out of the movie theater, arm in arm. "Nice idea."

"Thanks," Alex admitted. "I know we actually have made it to the movies before, but that was definitely outnumbered by all the occasions on which we didn't end up going after all." He checked his watch. "Aww, it'll be more than half an hour before the reservation is ready, I must have mixed up the times. Wanna find a bench to sit at in the mall?"

"Rservation?" Isabel asked. "What reservation... I thought we'd just grab something to eat here or swing by the crashdown."

"Nah, after everything that's happened, I figured that both of us deserve a celebration," he countered. "That is, well -- you know. I put a call into Walter's. They'll have a booth ready for us at nine thirty."

"Ohhh, that place is so fancy," Isabel said, and paused. "Okay. Well, no, I don't feel like a bench. We can go to your dad's car and make out."

Alex only had to think about that for a second. "Works for me!"

They hurried towards the parking lot entrance. "Did your parents notice anything different?"

"Not really." Alex frowned a little. "It's weird... I keep feeling like they should know, but at the same time I realize that I can't tell them anything about what happened. It'd just freak them out too much."

"Welcome to my life," Isabel joked.

Alex smiled weakly, and pushed the door open into the night air that was only slightly cool. "After you, my sweet."

Isabel stole a quick kiss from him as she stepped through.

THE END!


End file.
